Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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DVD Cartridge

Prevents fingerprints
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(+9, -2)
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I don't know what the engineers were thinking when they said DVDs last longer than VHS. Every other disk I rent skips, pauses, or hangs at some point in the movie. Upon examination of the disk, there are fingerprints, scratches, and dust coating the bottom surface, causing misreads.

The original manufacturers of the CD were worried about the fragility of their disks, and decided to enclose them in plastic cartridges similar to a floppy disk. It was eventually decided such protection was unnecessary for private use. But what about discs in a public environment?

Let's take a lesson from history and enclose DVDs in cartridges. The whole thing would be inserted into the player, where it would slide a protective cover over to get to the unscarred disk surface. They would be the same size as jewel cases, complete with labels. Rarely would there be any need to open it.

As with any upgrade innovation, it will be some time before DVD players start adding cartridge support. Until then, simply pop the disc out of the cartridge and into the player. And if you get any fingerprints on it, I will turn it over to the police claiming it was handled by a drug smuggler.

Aq_Bi, Feb 10 2005

(?) A Simpler way SD_20Movie_20System
Why reinvent the disc? just move on. [neo_, Oct 19 2009]

[link]






       It does, but not for set-top DVD players. It is a new use for an old product.
Aq_Bi, Feb 10 2005
  

       It seemed like a good idea at the time. But Panasonic tried it already.
I own a DVD player that can play discs inside "cartridges".
Amos Kito, Feb 11 2005
  

       Baked-I have a PSP. that console does something like this, but the CDs are half the size (or smaller) of a regular CD. However the cartridges break far too easily. I've had them get broken by *GAME CASES!* THats right their so fragile that cases intended to protect them actually break them. So I'll just put a fishbone into a cartridge and put it into your DVD player idea.
Dickcheney6, May 22 2008
  

       //the cartridges break//
DVD cartridges aren't particularly resilient, either. They require special care, but do prevent scratches to the discs (important with pricey DVD-RAM). And my player is still chugging along just fine.
Amos Kito, May 22 2008
  

       I blame Tomorrow's World for this. That single couple of minutes in the early 'eighties has a lot to answer for, and were it not for that, we wouldn't have this problem now. No-one used to treat vinyl like that. The problem is an educational one, not a design one, and giving them cartridges gives them another bit to go wrong and uses up resources.   

       The only reason PSP UMDs are like that is that Sony are a bunch of control freaks.
nineteenthly, May 22 2008
  

       Like mini-disks, right? I loved mini-disks, perhaps in the same way that older generations loved their Beta-max.
theleopard, May 22 2008
  

       I had some old CD caddy drives. I loved them. The caddies were bit expensive at $4 each. I bought a bunch of caddies. I stored my CDs in the caddies -- no scratches.   

       I would love to have a DVD drive that would use the old CD caddies.   

       My theory is that the CD companies WANTED YOU to scratch up your old CDs so that they could sell them to you again. That's why they killed the caddy concept.
cyber_rigger, Jul 28 2008
  

       [Ian], granted there would be inevitable wasted energy in that process, but what if it degraded into something really useful? I have nothing in mind, by the way. Oh, yes i have: build a parabolic reflector out of optical discs, which i think is on here somewhere.

Another option might be for them to be downloadable but locked, and stuck on a DVD-WR, then make the data expire after a couple of days before writing it over with another one. Then the ecological impact could be offset against the ecological impact of transporting and manufacturing the other discs.
nineteenthly, Oct 19 2009
  
      
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